Monday, March 28, 2011

Kelly of new FS blog, well, that was different | diary of a portable life, has a new post on white trash food and why learning your host country's language is extremely important. Excerpt:

As for other, more substantial, foods, I don’t think anyone could describe me as picky. You wouldn’t last long in the Foreign Service if you were. I’ve eaten crocodile (tastes like chicken), ostrich (tastes like really good chicken) and guinea pig (tastes like a small, stringy goat). I’ve eaten all kinds of oddball fruits and veggies at all levels of cleanliness. In short, you can take me on the road, stop at any little eating shack, and feed me just about anything. Once, anyway.

But I do have certain principles. Number one, I think we are designed to eat animals, but that’s no excuse to be mean to them. I try to buy free-range or cage-free eggs whenever I can. I try to buy free-range chicken and grass-fed beef. I try not to buy pork products from the big commercial producers. I don’t always succeed, but I try, and have intentions to try harder.

So, I don’t eat veal. Sorry, not doing the wiener schnitzel, no way, no how.

Number two, there are certain foods that I won’t eat because I know where they’ve been. Take paté . I had middle school biology, and I know what goes on in a liver. So, I don’t see why I would want to eat it. This seems perfectly logical to me.

Number three (and OK, maybe this isn’t entirely logical), I am not into weird meat products.

I think it’s good that Europeans don’t waste as much of the animals as we do. It’s ridiculous that so many people in this country will only eat chicken breasts or steaks, and let the rest of the animal go to waste. But seriously, brains?
[...]
All this confirms what I have always thought about German. The primary purpose of learning it is to make sure you don’t order something nasty on a menu. There ain’t no part of the critter that these folks won’t chow down on. Clearly, I need to be sure I cover the Rosetta Stone lesson on animal parts. All the parts.

Read the whole thing here.
According to her blog, Kelly is a Foreign Service spouse about to head out on their sixth overseas assignment. Here's more:

While still in college, I was crazy enough to marry an FSO and head off to Bolivia. Four more tours in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe followed, as well as one recent unaccompanied assignment for the husband.

I’ve been in DC for over six years, and never been posted to a truly first-world country before, so this next posting to Vienna should be kinda weird. And something happened while I was snoozing in suburbia: everyone in the FS seems to have a blog now. So, here goes. I’m starting by blogging about our lives here in DC and the upcoming move.

And, oh yeah, all the views expressed here are my own. Why would they be anyone else’s?